I heard from the news that if you stay in a hotel room connected to the convention center you're 99.9999999999% more likely to catch Corona than any other attendee. I care very deeply for those affected by this unfortunate development so I ask that if you are one of the affected, please cancel your room reservation and DM me immediately so that I know you're safe. :) #viruscancelparty #notmyvirus #coronagate #coronaislitterallyhitler
Statistics people, stop using tools u don't understand. 3.4 percent is made up of known cases. With a new virus like this, only 1/100th of cases are actually reported as many with the virus are asymptomatic. (you can research this) . Worst case probability , (because early stats indicate that 2 out of 3 who carry it are carriers, the actual death rate at it's worst is between .5 to .05% . In other words the death rate is slightly higher than the flu. And this stat is for at risk folk (elderly). And probably could be halved because children arne't dying from it (unlike the flu.).
This is also doesn't factor in that most of the known cases and deaths have occured from one concentrated region.
PLease people, stop rabble rousing and enjoy your life. Be safe, as you should always. Stop buying masks and quoting fake stats. Start being the same smart you always should be. There's nothing more that burns my bridges than people trying to do my job with no understanding of statistics passed high school
This is NOT the flu and should not be treated as such. Wake up. Read the link I posted and pay attention to the medical experts. If you are older or at risk, take precautions and protect yourself.
https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/5007417002?__twitter_impression=true
The media has done a wonderful job stirring up fear and panic. The simple fact is we don't have enough data yet to determine how this compares to seasonal flu. Just imagine if the media decided to create this level of panic every year. People need to stop quoting incomplete stats that have been taken out of context.
People die every year by the thousands from the flu. It is tragic, life goes on. The main issue is not having a vaccine yet to limit the spread. You should be taking basis precautions to help limit the spread but not panic and start hiding in bunkers. This isn't airborne ebola, it's just another flu/cold that may or may not be worst then the routine yearly seasonal germs that run around.
Gencons still a long way off. By May we should have a pretty good handle on CV, plenty of time to make informed decisions rather then decisions based on politically motivated fear mongering.
E3 was just cancelled.
I don't think the media is stirring up "Fear and Panic." I think the media is letting people know people are dying from a deadly virus and it's spreading like wildifre throughout Europe and now the US.
I love how people are trying to say it's most deadly among older people - like that makes any difference. I don't care who it is deadly for. It is deadly to humans.
"GenCon still a long way off." It doesn't matter. The virus is not about to suddenly stop growing in a months time which is why E3 which occurs in June has been canceled now.
Stop comparing this to Influenza. This is not Influenza.
This is a brand new virus that kills in much higher rates than the seasonal flu.
People die every year from car crashes. That's about how related this is to Influenza. Just because it's also something people die from doesn't mean it's relevant.
People also die every year from eating bad food and food poisoning. Should that also be compared to Coronavirus?
Do you not know what happened when the Spanish Influenza hit? The pandemic it caused? Did you guys go "Oh it was just the flu!" then too? It's just like the flu! If anything that's really bad. Look up the stats in the 1920s.
It's just sickening to also see people trying to post that because it kills 60-70 year olds it's not that dangerous for other ages. So if you get it and carry it and infect an older person by chance... Then what?
Obviously a group of you have vastly different opinions on this so I will stop posting here. Hopefully things slow down for you guys so you can enjoy your convention at this rate I will not be going regardless.
Go read yourself what your FDA man said. "If you look at some literature", he says, and then he spouts a lot of numbers with the words "could be" attached to them. And then you come here and proclaim 'what the death rate is, period, full stop'. You are providing misleading information.
Again, if you want to pay more attention to a former head of an organization that doesn't specialize in infectious diseases, a man who is no longer with that organization but is now a fellow at a conservative think-tank and working with a venture capital firm (i.e. not necessarily looped in to all the best data anymore), than to the CDC and WHO, you certainly can. But please stop posting incomplete and misleading statistics.
This is a complex issue, not just something that someone with no training can 'go online' and 'do the math' to figure out. "I know the CDC and WHO are saying this, but I looked at a website, and I did some long division, and..." It doesn't work that way.
What is the mortality rate? The people with the best data and training do not know.
The mortality, across the whole population, appears to be about 3.4%.
Yes, the old and those with pre-existing health conditions are more susceptible. So... what? I ask again. That doesn't give you license to simply go "they don't matter looks like the young and fit are OK so we don't need to take precautions to protect those who are vulnerable."
Because that's what that sort of statement is implying. Basically we shouldn't worry because only (mostly) the old are dying of the disease? Bizarre.
Regardless of age group, 3.4% mortality across all age groups is significantly higher than influenza. Mortality for seasonal influenza is quoted at typically less than 0.1%. Again, across all age groups.
Pushing the idea that coronavirus is no worse than influenza is misguided and wrong. This is a serious health risk, and the reason that whole countries are entering into quarantine is because of that risk. It's not some sort of media-led frenzy that we can safely ignore.
Everyone has been exposed to a form of coronavirus. It causes the common cold which usually has much less severe then the seasonal flu. This is just a different strain just like how we get different strains of influenza and coronavirus every single year. This is not some completely different virus humankind has never seen before.
What is different is the level of panic the media is attempting to whip up. Most years we can't give the flu vaccine away.
Despite the media hysteria we just don't know how this strain stacks up against prior strains. We will know that in the next month or two. Plenty of time for gencon to make a informed decision rather then new jerk fest based.
I'm not pushing the idea that COVID-19 is 'no worse' than the flu. Please quote me, or stop lying about what I'm saying. What I am saying is that I am listening to the public health officials and experts, rather than making up statistics based on incomplete information I am finding online.
It's also ridiculous and bordering on libel to suggest that I have said that, how did you put it, old people and people with health conditions "don't matter". If you really can't read or process well enough to figure out what I'm actually saying--if you really think that my message has been "those people don't matter, this is no worse than the flu, everything is fine", then you really do need to stop posting. Stop misrepresenting what I and others are saying. I don't know if it's intentional or not, but you are arguing against claims people are not making, and you're doing it by making up your own statistics, in the face of what the experts are saying. Bravo.
I really think this thread needs to be locked. Made-up public health statistics are dangerous.
First of all, there are always new viruses.
And "coronavirus" isn't new. (This isn't THE coronavirus. It is A coronavirus.) SARS and MERS were coronaviruses, too. Both of which seem to have had much higher mortality rates (though not necessarily morbidity rates). MERS mortality rate was over 30%.
As brotherbock just said, we don't really know the mortality rate yet. You cannot calculate this (as a previous poster did) by dividing deaths by the number of confirmed cases because there are very likely lots of unconfirmed, possibly symptom-free, cases out there.
Take a step back. Wait. People are researching this and working on it. Follow the evidence-based recommendations. Stop panicing and trying to come up with your own solutions. In my town, someone is trying to get the public library to quarantine returned library books for 2 weeks before releasing them again. This is despite the fact that my state has more then 5.5 million people and we had 3 confirmed cases in the whole state. This kind of pressure on organizations (Gen Con included) is just not helpful at this time.
This is no time to minimize what is going on. I get that people care about themselves and don’t want Gencon cancelled. But this isn’t a made up story. There is a concerted effort to portray this as the common flu. It’s not.
Anyone who has ever had to be interviewed by the media or been at a meeting attended by the media and later read a story wrote by the media knows just how much the media likes to misquote or misinterpret "facts".
in before the Quarantine (thread lock)
Just a quick update about responses :
NY (I live here ) The governor authorized the National Guard to form a 1 mile containment around the "hot spot " of New Rochelle .
The Ivy league cancelled its mens and womens Basketball Tournaments and more will be following
Indiana: Notre Dame (son goes there ) just cancelled all classes for next week and will not allow students into campus housing (except in specific cases). only online classes from March 23-April 13 . There are no cases there .
The above are reactions to a perceived and/or possible threat - Statistics (whether real or imagined ) do not matter in an organizations plan of actions .
Just remember -The decision may not be up to Gen Con . Any decision is likely to be made by legal advisors and politicians .
Roderick Robertson Forum Coordinator Gen Con, LLC.
Hotel cancellations policies aren't binding and the Hotel can alter them in the case of emergency. And they will alter them if there is an issue with the virus at the proper time. The deposits for the Hotel lottery haven't even been paid yet. That is still 3 months away.
Airlines can make exceptions as well for this.
Gencon is still months away and no need to rush any decision. Emerald City Comicon just proved something as large as Gencon can be postponed or cancelled just a few weeks before the event. It is much easier to postpone or cancel a large con that it is to get one up and running again.
Have the casinos in Vegas closed their doors? I mean right now today? Or are they still letting people go from slot machine to slot machine without wiping down the machines. Touching and handling dice and chips clustered together at a table. At peak times aren't they like being at a convention?